barless
wild-type
(bar)
Checker
(Chequer)
T-pattern checkerI have shown all
wild pigment (blue/black) series birds in order not to confuse the issue with
color.(Note in the
T-pattern that the tail bar is clearly visible. This is not normally true
with Spread.)

This Indian Fantail Cock is
Spread.Spread is
not part of the pattern
series.

Note the four basic patterns above -
barless, wild-type (bar),
checker and T-pattern checker. These are listed from left to right in
order of dominance with barless being at the bottom, i.e., barless is
recessive to wild-type (bar) and checker and T-pattern checker are dominant to
wild-type ((bar). T-pattern checker is also dominant to checker.
There are some other alleles of checker (dark check and light check) which
W.F. Hollander has described, but for practical purposes we can ignore them at
the moment. Barless is a fairly rare mutant in most domestic pigeon
breeds and seems to be found mainly in birds of Central European
ancestry. Mating any homozygous bird of a lower pattern (i.e., to the
left of another shown) to a homozygous bird of a higher pattern will produce
all young of the higher pattern and those youngsters will be heterozygous for
the lower pattern. Since these patterns are not sex-linked, a mating of
any two birds that heterozygous for the same patterns will produce 25%
homozygous for the higher pattern; 50% heterozygous for and showing the higher
pattern and heterozygous for the lower pattern; 25% homozygous for the lower
pattern. For example:

This mating would 75% barred birds and 25% barless
birds. The barred bird may or may not be heterozygous for barless.
Sometimes these heterozygous barred birds can be distinquished. If you
know your family lines, a barred bird heterozygous for barless may sometimes
be recognized by noting that the bar is less wide than normal - when compared
to its relatives. This is not a 100% accurate, but can often be helpful.
In like manner, a checkered bird heterozygous for bar may sometimes be
distinguished by a slightly narrower bar - compared to its related homozygous
bar loftmates.

The most important things to remember:

1) All pigeons are one of these patterns.
A bird may not show its pattern because other modifiers prevent it, but the
pattern is there. For example: one may have a recessive white pigeon -
nothing of the pattern shows, yet if such a bird is paired to a wild-type
(blue bar) pigeon, the pattern hidden by the recessive white will be seen in
the young (Yes, I know, unless the bird is a barless in which case, you'd have
to breed the first generation youngsters together to check the
grandkids.)

2) Pattern is NOT sex-linked.
Therefore, both cock and hen may be homozygous or heterozygous for any
particular pattern.

3) Pattern is inherited INDEPENDENTLY of color.

4) SPREAD is NOT part
of the pattern series and is found on a different chromosome.

At first, everyone thought that Spread, the mutation
which gives us black, self brown, etc., was part of the pattern series, but
this was found to be incorrect. In fact, every Spread bird is also one
of the patterns listed above. Without another factor such as Toy Stencil
to let the hidden pattern show through, we can't usually see it. Toy Stencil,
however, is something which "punches out" the pattern underneath the Spread. A
spangled black Wing-Pigeon, for example, is merely a spread checker
bird.

(Do you realize, that no one, presently, has any
idea exactly how Toy Stencil is able to differentiate the spread checker
marking from what seems to be identical pigment in the rest of the wing?
W. F. Hollander has been trying to get some graduate biology or chemistry
student to work on this for years. It'd be a great Master or Doctoral
thesis.)Copyright
02/25/2000 by Frank Mosca. All photo copyrights are held by the
photographers.